Eating both cakes

The current MMO payment model needs to die. Well, I mean subscription fees are probably still going to be necessary for the foreseeable future– server architecture doesn’t run itself, but I mean the idea of paying full price for a game and paying extra every month for it afterwards. That’s what needs to die.

I bought The Secret World last week because it sounded really interesting, but man, that game is all about milking the players for anything they can. You pay $50 to purchase the game, plus $15 per month and they expect players to pay extra on top of their subscription fee for any premium features past the base game. Can we at least agree that under the above model the very concept of “purchasing” the game is irrelevant. What exactly do you “own” from this purchase? These guys need to make up their mind on whether they are selling a product or a service, because right now they’re getting away with doing both. [Hint: it’s a service.]

Relevant Penny Arcade. [As a side note, I’m starting to think there is a Penny Arcade comic relevant to just about every hot video game topic these days.]